Downsizing a Residential Circulator to Reduce Life Cycle Cost
Intended Audience: Building Services
Objective: Replace a circulator with the most cost-effective option.
Description of System: A 30-year-old circulator has to be replaced in a one-family house with 26 radiators.
Description of Intervention: The standard way to replace a circulator would be to install an electronic variable speed circulator (System A). The old circulator seemed to be oversized; therefore, an analysis of the real existing resistances was performed.
See Table 1 below:
Table 1: Summary of Results
Summary of Results: This analysis showed that a very small electronic circulator could be used (System B). Additionally, the pump and hydraulic noise in the radiators was reduced. Refer to Table 1 for the cost analysis.
Conclusion: Unnecessarily large pumps are installed in many systems and a calculation of hydraulic resistance would show that smaller pumps could be used.
Written by:
Members of the Committee, 1st Edition
Published In: Pump Life Cycle Cost: A Guide to LCC Analysis for Pumping Systems, 2nd Edition
Year of Publication: 2021
Pump Life Cycle Costs: A Guide to LCC Analysis for Pumping Systems – 2nd Edition – Pumps.org